Your Path to Medical School: The Medical School Timeline Explained

Webinar Series

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/90c2f0_bab4cadfa8794700b83e9faf3e1e762b/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

“Thank you all so much for being here. You may or may not know this is our very first webinar, so we are thrilled to be able to present this very valuable information to you tonight. As you're still coming into the room, please put in the chat where you're from, and we will get started now. Thank you.

So, welcome. My name is Caryn Marcus. We are here to present to you tonight “Your Path to Medical School: The Medical School Timeline Explained.”

And I am Marisa Sanders. I am a writing coach and pre-health advisor.

I’m Sophie Pritchett. I’m the high school operations coordinator and administrative assistant.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. So again, we had about 138 people register. This is super exciting. We’re going to speak with you for about 30 minutes, but please—we want to leave plenty of time for questions. As an old boss of mine said, there’s no dumb question except the question not asked. So, we’re going to get ready and dive in here in a moment.

I wanted to start off just by letting you know that 10 years ago, we launched the practice to really take the fear and uncertainty out of college and professional school admissions. In doing that, we prioritize bringing out the best in our students, helping them to find their unique attributes and personal narratives to become the strongest candidates for their desired schools. We offer several different services here.

So, we place students in medical school—MD, DO, and physician associate programs. We work with post-bacc pre-med students who are eager to start medical school. Maybe they’re career changers, so they’ve been in the business world for 10 years and decide that they want to be a doctor. We help those students navigate this complicated path.

We also work with post-bacc students who may have had a slow start to their undergraduate careers. Their GPA took a hit, and we work with them to make sure that they find the perfect post-bacc program for them and are successful in moving on to medical school.

We also love working with our high school students. We work with students in a wide variety of interests and majors, but we definitely specialize in working with high schoolers who are interested in medicine. And together, between Marisa and myself, we have 24 years of experience placing students in medical school.

So again, we’re so happy you’re here. Our audience is made up of a lot of different folks. We have advisors in the room—so a huge shout-out to our IECs—we have parents, and of course, our fabulous students are here tonight. We really urge you to be curious tonight. We are leading with curiosity when we deliver this valuable information. At the end, please—we want questions. Put your questions in the chat. Again, any and all questions are welcome. So, we’re going to go with the flow a little bit and have some fun.

Okay. Our goals for today. So, we have three main goals, really. The first is to understand the overall medical school application timeline and these major milestones. These milestones include the MCAT—that stands for the Medical College Admission Test. So, that’s a huge component; we’ll talk more about it later in our slides.

We’re also going to talk about the AMCAS. This is the American Medical College Application Service. When we refer to AMCAS tonight, we’re referring to the medical school application. And then, of course, we have these secondary applications. These are those additional essays that medical schools ask for when you apply to medical school. And the timeliness of all of these components is so important.

We also want to gain clarity on the steps and sequence of the process, which will help reduce confusion and stress. And we really, really want to emphasize that a properly timed timeline will help reduce confusion and stress.

So, this is the big-picture overview that we want to share with you before we start getting into the nitty-gritty of the timeline. So, medical school admissions is rolling, which many of the students in the audience tonight who’ve applied to college now know. Colleges are rolling admissions. This means that applications are reviewed as they are received, and so the earlier your application, the more likely you might be to get an interview.

When we think about the longitudinal process of applying to medical school, it can really span anywhere between 15 to 18 months. And we mention that because that’s from the start of writing your application to actually starting medical school. So, the grit, the resilience, the patience required to apply to medical school is quite vast. And the key idea—and the one we’re going to talk about a lot tonight—is most of the work happens before you submit your application.

So, this slide could actually be its own presentation. I think eventually down the road we will do a presentation on how to know if you’re a competitive applicant to medical school. But for the purpose of tonight and the timeline, this slide is important because one year before you apply, you want to take a look at your candidacy and ensure that you are a competitive candidate for medical school.

So again, this is one year. We want you to do a self-candidate assessment, making sure you have those clinical experiences that you need, which are the hardest to fit in while you’re in undergrad, based on what we see anecdotally in our practice.

Then you can create your roadmap for the year. Continue your non-clinical volunteering, your shadowing. Are you demonstrating leadership? Are you gaining these competencies to be a competitive applicant? And planning for the MCAT—this is a very critical piece of applying to medical school.

It’s super interesting because when we were prepping for tonight, we were talking a lot about how this really sounds like we’re checking boxes, doesn’t it? And you’ll notice I didn’t even bring up research because every year we have students who apply to medical school who get in just fine without research. So, every applicant’s journey looks a little bit different depending on their priorities.

But really, for the students out there, you’re doing all of this work because you’re building your understanding of medicine and the physical and mental stamina required to both be successful in medical school and as a physician. So again, everyone’s journey is a little bit different.

Okay, now we’re going to hit the fun stuff and talk a little bit more about the actual timeline.

So now I will briefly go over the components of the application. We created this timeline because we know that early preparation and pacing are key to really reducing stress in this lengthy process that has all these moving parts.

So, the earliest submission date is late May, and we’ll come back to that later. But we like to start the writing portions of the application in November or December. But I want to pause for a moment before I stress anyone out. While we have lots of students starting with us in November, December, or earlier, we also have students joining us in January, February, and sometimes even March. And so a highly motivated pre-med who can work at a slightly faster pace can also be extremely successful in this process.

Okay, so moving back to our ideal timeline, we will start with the first writing section in the AMCAS, which is called the experiences section. Here, a student has the opportunity to enter up to 15 short entries, and these are what they have done on their path to medical school. And I want you to think of the experiences section as your resume, but in paragraph form.

So, you will cover your clinical experiences, your extracurriculars, your leadership, your research, your service—all of those things that you have done. And we really believe it’s important to complete this section before we move on to writing the personal statement. That’s because they inform the personal statement.

When a student really takes the time to sit down and think about all they have done and reflect on their experiences, it really helps cement why they want to be a doctor.

So then the next piece of writing is the personal statement. This is 5,300 characters, or roughly a page and a quarter, and it responds to the prompt: explain why you want to go to medical school.

Now we’re in the late February timeframe, but there are some things that overlap. So now I want to briefly touch on the non-writing pieces.

In roughly January, this is a great time for students to request their letters of recommendation. In the application, these are called letters of evaluation—it’s the same thing. So they will request their letters from their writers. They will also contact their pre-health advising offices to see if those offices supply a committee letter or a letter packet, because in those instances, the office collects letters on behalf of the student and uploads them to the application.

And then probably what most students consider the most exciting part of the application is formulating the med school list. Typically, this happens after we have the MCAT score. That’s because a student’s metrics—their GPA and MCAT—really guide us in figuring out the best fit for the student. And I’ll also add that most of our students apply to about 25 schools.

Now Karen is going to talk a little bit about MCAT timing.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much, Marissa. So, we’re inserting this slide here because the MCAT is such an important component. I want to preface this slide by saying that while it says “ideal test window,” what we’re showing you is when, anecdotally, most of our students are taking the MCAT.

However, earlier is better—but not too early. What I mean by that is we want to make sure that all of our students have taken their pre-med coursework requirements before taking the MCAT. Sometimes we’ve seen students trying to teach themselves biochemistry or hiring a tutor to do so. While some students might be able to pull that off, we do not recommend it.

So once you’re finished with your prerequisites, then you are ready to start prepping for your MCAT, assuming you can devote the time.

While January to March is when we see most students testing, it’s important to remember that the application opens in May. Many students test January through March. It’s also important to know that it takes 30 days to receive your MCAT score.

The MCAT runs from January through September, with no testing dates in October, November, or December. And most medical schools accept MCAT scores that are two to three years old, depending on the school.

Alright, now we’re moving into spring. Some schools require additional assessments called Casper and Preview. These are situational judgment tests that assess people and professional skills. They usually open in March, and we recommend completing them by April or May.

Now we move into May, when the application opens. On May 1st, the application opens for data entry. Students enter their information, coursework, and writing. In late May, they can submit. Then the application is verified, which can take anywhere from one day to several weeks.

Then in late June, applications are transmitted to medical schools in the order they were verified. So again, earlier is better.

After that, schools begin sending secondary applications—typically two to six additional essays per school. We recommend a turnaround time of one to two weeks because your application is not reviewed until secondaries are complete.

We also recommend pre-writing common secondary essays in June to reduce stress once they arrive.

Interview season begins as early as August and continues on a rolling basis. Most interviews are still virtual. Students should monitor their email closely, as timing can vary greatly.

The first acceptances are released around October 15. Students can send update letters or letters of continued interest. Acceptances, waitlists, and rejections continue through winter and spring.

By April 15, students narrow their choices to three schools, and by April 30, they choose one. Offers can still come after this date, including waitlist movement.

To recap: start early, write your experiences first, then your personal statement, build your school list, take required tests, submit in May, pre-write secondaries in June, interview in the fall and winter, and begin medical school in July.

Final takeaways: preparing for medical school takes at least one year before applying. Early submission improves outcomes. Momentum matters. Strong applications are built early, submitted early, and completed quickly.

Thank you again so much for being here. This is our very first webinar, and we are so grateful you took the time to join us tonight.”